Well the man himself has said it now. He isn't quitting at the end of the 2010 season. And hopefully should stop the murmurs. Thursday is the day when the circuit is alive with media and drivers and the lucky fans. While the drivers are settling down before their hectic three day stint, the media get more of an opportunity to talk to the drivers than after the practice or race sessions.
One reporter was straight to the point in asking Schumacher if he was retiring at the end of the year :-) Anyway Schumacher interview to the media reporters gives a clearer idea of what the man is thinking.
An interesting point said by Schumacher is that he won his first title with Benetton after four years and his first with Ferrari after five. He pointed out that it takes time to win a title which obviously would involve working with team, engineers, getting to understand the car, its design etc. Ofcourse this time round Schumacher has only a three year contract with the team, but he hopes that its sufficient.
The issue for Schumacher this year has been the comparisons made with this teammate. Nico Rosberg has had a better year with their car. That obviously didn't work in favour of the 7 time world champion. While some said that we give time, soon people realised that this was the trend of the season. Things were the opposite for Rosberg at the start of the season, the hype of the former champion returning was well handled by Rosberg.
Schumacher mentioned that he is yet to come to grips with the current car and tyres. The initial car would have been designed based on the inputs they had with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello last year and it seems that they have been unsucessful in turning around certain aspects of the car to suit Schumacher. Rosberg on the other hand is faring better and probably has no issues adapting to the car characteristics, only that the car isn't a winner is keeping him away from better results.
Schumacher has said that they have made a good choice in shifting focus to 2011 early enough while the top three teams would be fighting till the last race for this years title. He is hoping that they should have a slight amount of advantage with that.
Next year would be the key for Schumacher. The first target for him would be to be on par or better than his team mate and the world would be keenly watching him even more.
